


closed fist

by ketabat



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 1990s, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Character Death, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Protective Steve Harrington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23476936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketabat/pseuds/ketabat
Summary: Steve’s hand turns into a fist, the set of his jaw tightening until Billy thinks he might break his molars. For a second, he thinks maybe Steve would kill Neil if he weren’t already dead.or, the one where neil croaks.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 13
Kudos: 239





	closed fist

He always thought he’d be _euphoric_ when he gets the call that his father’s finally croaked. Always joked about throwing a party. Always said _did he kick the bucket yet?_ when he was on the phone with Max. When he did, they both knew it was an indirect way of saying _how is he?_

When it _actually_ happens though, mid-Winter of 1992, he’s,

_Not euphoric._

He feels bile rise in his throat and tears prickle behind his eyelids and he feels an unexpected scandent vine of guilt coil itself tightly around his heart, as tight as his hold on the telephone, and sink its thorns inside until he can barely fucking breathe.

He doesn’t cry.

He puts the phone down, turns his music up, and starts cooking.

...

He’s reading when Steve comes home, leans down behind the couch the same time Billy tilts his head back and drops a chaste upside down kiss to his mouth. “Should be resting,” Steve says, his hands roving down the collar of his shirt to rub up and down his fevered chest.

“Got bored,” Billy answers, shrugging a shoulder. “I made jambalaya for you.”

Steve hums. “You never cook,” he states. _Unless you want to distract yourself,_ goes unsaid. Billy hears it anyway.

“You seriously gonna complain, pretty boy?” He huffs, laughs a little for the first time that day. Steve tangles his fingers in his hair in a _shut it_ kind of way.

They sit at the table quietly for the longest time, something that earns Billy a few wary looks from Steve because they’ve always been _loud_ , talking about meaningless shit and laughing over the silliest things. Teasing each other with sultry words and heated looks until they’re fucking against a wall or the kitchen counter. Or anywhere that isn’t the bed because Billy says that’s too _cliché._

Right now, Billy doesn’t want to talk because he knows his voice will break and Steve doesn’t want to talk because he’s not sure he should.

And Billy— doesn’t _want that._ It was an ordeal getting Steve to openly talk about things. His parents never being around during his school years stitched his mouth shut. Over the past six years, Billy had taken his time sundering the thread.

So he speaks up as he pours himself some orange juice. “Neil finally snuffed it last night,” he says casually, putting the carton down and bringing his glass to his lips.

Steve stills, his chewing slowing as he turns his head to look at Billy.

“The hospital called this morning,” Billy goes on, tongue lapping over his upper lip. “Intoxicated driving. The other guy’s fine though.”

Steve looks like he’s lost his ability to talk.

“So we gotta go back to Hicktown for the funeral,” Billy smiles, hazarding a glance at Steve. “Otherwise the minister will be talking to himself.”

Steve still doesn’t say anything.

“May come as a surprise, but he wasn’t a pleasant guy,” Billy laughs around his mouthful of food as he chews, looks over at Steve like he’s expecting him to laugh as well and waves his fork casually, like they’re talking about _the fucking weather_. “You don’t have to come with,” he says.

“I—” Steve swallows. “I— will. Should— want to,” he lets go of his spoon and reaches for Billy’s hand, lifts it to his lips, brushes kisses over the his knuckles. “I love you.”

Billy softens, cups Steve’s cheek gently with a calloused hand. He doesn't say it back, just smiles and pats Steve's cheek once.

...

Hawkins is just as shitty as it was last time Steve had been there. Back then, he had nothing to compare it to. Right now, he has Italy and London and Ankara and _California._ He has the home he’s found in Billy’s arms.

“Missed this?” Billy asks from the driver’s seat.

Steve snorts. “Fuck no.” He doesn’t. He doesn’t miss Hawkins. He doesn’t miss what it represented when he lived here, loneliness and oppression and fear of who he was. He doesn’t miss the claustrophobic feeling of being stuffed inside a cage too small for his body. He knows Billy doesn’t either.

Billy gives a high pitched laugh. One that dissipates as they pull into the driveway of Billy’s old home. _House._

It looks exactly the same inside. Peeling paint that Neil never bothered to fix. Same shitty TV that sometimes lost color in the cold. Worn out sofas. Dripping ceilings. No wonder Susan left.

“A shitty place for a shitty resident, huh?” Billy jokes, voice echoing in the empty house.

Steve knows Billy. He’s known him for eight years, even if he spent two of those hating him. He knows how he hides in a shell of carelessness and flippancy when he’s hurt, when the pain’s bubbling too close to the surface so he compensates with shit he doesn’t mean.

Steve hesitates, swallows dryly as he looks around. “Where’s your room?”

Billy gives him a sideways glance and a suggestive smirk. “You’d wanna know.”

It makes Steve roll his eyes. “Show some respect, Hargrove,” he tuts his tongue, playfully chastising.

Billy nods his head to the side. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He sits down on his dust-layered bed and watches Steve run his eyes over the bedroom he grew up in.

And. They’ve kissed and cuddled and fucked and adopted two cats and an ugly guinea pig but this still feels more intimate than all of those _combined._ Like he’s letting Steve see a part of him that he’s only seen from his point of view. Getting to see another angle of his life. Another angle of Billy Hargrove Assholery Extraordinaire.

Steve stops at the open door, lifts a hand and brushes long fingers over the bolt lock. Billy sees the way his jaw flexes and the way his fingers shake before he’s looking at him.

“He’d lock me up sometimes,” Billy fills in the blanks, in case Steve didn’t put two and two together. “If I fucked up too bad.”

Steve’s hand turns into a fist, the set of his jaw tightening until Billy thinks he might break his molars. For a second, he thinks maybe Steve would kill Neil if he weren’t already dead.

“What else?” Steve asks. He walks over to Billy’s bed, sits down next to him. “What else did he do?”

Billy shrugs. “Belt and cords, mostly. But you know that,” because he still has indelible scars on his back, shadowy and barely there, just slashes of lighter skin. First time Steve felt them, they were still raw and tender, had Billy hissing into his neck, hips stuttering as he told him to _watch it_. They weren’t together then, not even close. But it had Steve brushing kisses over the welts, masking the feelings tucked into the line of his lips with filthy words. The kisses had only been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, an indulgence of emotions he couldn’t give free rein to back then. Back when they were nothing more than a warm body to each other, a low notch on each other’s bedposts. “Cigarettes. He joked about using a riding crop sometimes.”

Steve twiddles his thumbs. “What else?”

Billy looks down. “Dunno.” Steve gives him a pointed look, and it makes the corner of Billy’s lips tip up even though he _isn’t looking._ “He’d get mad at me for—” he gestures for his outfit. “Call me names. _Fag_ mostly. Would say Max is more of a man than I’ll ever be,” he laughs at the end, watery and broken. “Lock me out if I’m late to dinner. He— one time he made me chug down my cologne.”

Steve’s toes curl, teeth gritting tightly as he stares at the floorboards. “What else?”

“He took my mom away from me.”

“Do you hate him?”

“Yes,” Billy answers immediately. Reflexively. Like he’s said he hates him so many times in his head he just needs to say it out loud to make it true. “Yes,” he repeats, quieter. “Yeah.”

Steve’s hands twitch with the need to hold him.

“No,” Billy whispers. “I don’t. I really fucking don’t and I should’ve—” Billy takes a deep breath. “Should’ve checked on him.”

 _No you shouldn’t have,_ Steve wants to say. He doesn’t.

“He was my _dad._ ”

 _He was your father, never your dad,_ Steve aches to say. He doesn’t.

He only moves in closer and wraps his arms around Billy, drawing him close, until Billy’s face is pressed into his neck and his tears are hidden in his skin. “I’ve got you,” Steve says, holding him tighter, running a hand up and down his arm and pressing kisses into his hair. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Billy crumbles.

...

They opt for a graveside service. Billy says Neil _didn’t even deserve that._

It’s quick. Joyce and her kids are there despite not even knowing Neil. Despite not knowing _Billy_ that well. Lucas and Max are there, hand-in-hand. Max doesn’t shed a single tear. _Susan’s there._ Billy finds he doesn’t hate her as much as he used to.

It rains halfway through the eulogy and Billy cracks a joke like, “at least _someone’s_ crying.”

It isn’t funny, but Steve laughs anyway.

After the burial, Susan walks up to them, hand clenched tightly around her umbrella. She opens and closes her mouth, looks like she doesn’t know where to start before she settles for a quiet, “How have you been, Billy?”

“Fuckin’ fantastic, Susan,” Billy answers. “Why do you care?” There’s a pause where Billy chews over his next words, poisoning them. “You never cared when we were under the same roof.”

Susan nods like _I deserved that._ “I should’ve done something,” she confesses.

“Yeah. Well you didn’t,” Billy replies, quiet and composed because he’s twenty five years old and he can control his emotions. “Never blamed you, y’know,” he goes on. “Not for one second. Just- needed to know someone cared and you couldn’t even give me that.”

Susan’s eyes water, and Steve clears his throat, thinks that maybe that’s his cue to give them time alone. “I’m going— I’m going to—”

“Stay,” Billy cuts in. “Stay. It’s fine.”

“Heard you’re married,” Billy says to Susan. “He treating you well?”

Susan reaches for her ring finger and twists the ring with a small smile. “He is.”

“That’s good,” Billy says. Monotonous. Then, with a tenuous smile softening his voice. “That’s good.”

Susan smiles, tucking her hair behind an ear and nodding. “And- you?” She looks between Steve and Billy. She looks like she _surmises_ there’s something between them but isn’t sure. “How’s California?”

Billy heaves a sigh, like he can’t wait to get back there. “Better than this hellhole,” he says. The same time Steve says “beautiful.”

She smiles. Bows her head to hide a laugh when Steve and Billy glare at each other. As though she hasn’t earned the right to laugh and Billy would _scold her_ or something. Billy huffs. “You should visit again sometime,” he says. It’s out of courtesy. Obviously. But Susan looks like she appreciates it.

...

“You gonna sell it?” Steve asks, words mingled with smoke as he passes Billy the cig.

Billy’s jaw tightens. “Do we need the money?” He asks. He doesn’t smoke, just lets the cigarette burn between his fingers before passing it back to Steve.

Steve shrugs. “It’ll be your money.”

Billy glares. He’s always hated it when they split stuff. Money, clothes, bills. It was endearing. Makes Steve smile even now.

“You realize how sappy you are, right?”

Billy leans over the console. Kisses Steve on the cheek. On the corner of his mouth. Licks into his mouth like he’s chasing the taste of nicotine. “I wanna fuck you in his bedroom.”

Steve chokes on a breath. “Dude. _Weird._ ”

Billy grins. Takes Steve's bottom lip between his teeth and pulls. “Say yes.”

_“No.”_

Billy pouts. Steve laughs, pressing two fingers to Billy’s mouth and pushing him away.

They fall silent, staring at the house for a long while.

“Can we—” Billy’s voice cuts off abruptly. He licks over his mouth like that’ll pave way for his words. “Can we burn it down?”

Steve’s chest tightens. He takes a breath. Stubs the cigarette out on the side of his seat and turns his head to look at Billy.

He feels like the decision is based on anger. Or sadness. Or pain. Maybe Billy thinks burning the house down will burn down the memories he has in it too. Or that it would cauterize the open scars he still owns.

Steve isn’t sure it’s even legal.

But somehow, _you sure?_ and _isn’t that illegal?_ abbreviate to a simple _yeah, baby. we can._


End file.
